Conformed to This World and/or Coformed With It

Lust - Addiction - Betrayal - Greed - Lies - Abuse of Women - Laziness

The wicked sins of this world is what the Thugs hear when they read “Do not be conformed to this world…”

This is what Craig has in my mind when yesterday he wrote, “those who seek to conform to the world in an attempt to gain the favor of the world.” Or, at least it’s what Romans 12 has in mind. [Craig just wanted to smear those who read scripture and absorb it in devotion rather than worshipping it untouched.]

And it’s true that all the above wickednesses are ways that Trump and various hand-picked members of his administration have confirmed to this world in a narcissistic drive for favor.

Other sins, less destructive, though, we all have and therefore should be humble. Craig quotes from Romans 12, which warns us, “For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him.”

Sober judgment? Why do we need sober judgment if the whole world and everything about us to despised and rejected? 

The Thugs are always talking about the tricked out evils of the world but never the grace to be found in it. Well, they will laud a waterfall that has no will but they then disparage, say, a community activist arguing that Alabama has a moral responsibility to fix the clean water crisis that’s killing its black citizens.

So if all the human world - including its best intentions - are to be rejected of the player doesn’t give his the glory for a touchdown…

Why the need for sober judgment? It’s cut and dried, white and black to the thugs.

The Son of God emptied himself of glory and power because God so loved the human world. Jesus was born of a woman who, because she believed and gave her assent, was called the most favored of all. He worked as laborer with wood because he followed for a fine his earthly father’s trade. His feet got dirty from his travels, his head hurt from not having a bed. Among some he was despised and rejected. Among others, followed and glorified. He healed the sick: touched them. He breathed on them. He protected women.

All of them were sinners, those who reviled them, those who honored him, those he saved.

It did not matter. He loved them. He and his father lived them and he made his home in cities and towns. Human community. So much so that sometimes he needed to get away.

He conformed, or perhaps better, he coformed with the world. It formed him. He had a body. He ate good food and made wine better at his mother’s command. He took no commands from anyone else.

And he formed it. He also taught. He used his mind. He wasn’t 4 when he began teaching. He was 12 when he had enough thoughts of his own to engage with the men of the Temple. 

This is the world which God has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it. We have been given wonderful life by God’s grace. The world and I have coformed each other. According to God’s plan.

In between the 2 verses above from Romans 12, there’s this: “… be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Sober judgment is to distinguish between what is good in the world - worldly revelations and, so, little sacraments of God’s grace (waterfalls and philosophy and hydroengineering - and what is wicked.

The Thugs shudder at enjoying the work of God’s love and loving it in turn. They choose to be formed by something else. Something past and dead. Mortal and gone. It’s a terrible thing to be anxious at the center of oneself while whistling and smiling unconcerned. Dead things make people callous and angry and hateful.

The Thugs’ hatred toward God’s world drives them - however much they dislike the bad taste in their mouth [a conscience they violate] - to give a nod or a full-throated yell for Trump and his mobs.

Lust - Addiction - Betrayal - Greed - Lies - Abuse of Women - Laziness